Doom and Columbine...

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I know this has been beaten to death, but since Doom 3 came out the debate came up again with some friends about how Doom was an influence on those murdering thugs at Columbine.

If ANY of you have this come up in conversation again and Doom comes up you can think about this:

I bought a 1969 chevy pickup I planned on turning into my own little hot rod a couple of years ago. It had a lot of old crap in it when I got it home to clean up. Behind the seats, in the engine compartment, inside the doors, everywhere. From soda pop cans, to old quarters, and old receipts.

What I found in the glovebox was a local Seattle newspaper dating back to 1953. Eisenhower was dealing with the Russians over something....and right there on the front page was an article about a kid who was caught with a gun he stole from his dad at school. He had threatened a bunch of kids with it before he was caught.

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Didnt the US Supreme court rule that the Game companies (and therefore the games themselves) where in no way responsible for the shhotings (after a bunch of people tried to sue them), of a court of law says doom didnt cause columbine, it didnt!

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I hate people think its always games and tv infuence all the bad things.. but never good things.. i feel if your stupid enough to do what you see in a game or movie, you shouldnt get to play them or watch them... after all, in the end its the person not the video games, that have to choice to do or not do it..

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I hate people think its always games and tv infuence all the bad things.. but never good things

Jeremy Clarkson did a series about that, except he highlighted some bad things too (like how Computers have revolutionised communications, and the internet has fundamentally changed the way we live, but an EMP could knock us back to the stone age), he didnt really focus on games in the bit about computers (mainly thier history, the internet, and robots), but there was a show about television that showed all the good things about it (like easily spreading news, mass entertainment ect), but also some bad stuff (like Obesity from sitting in front of it all day), well there are bad sides to everything, and the media likes to focus on those all the time, it sells papers, and works the old luddites into a frenzy (or so they think, Britian has a rapidly growing amount of 'silver surfers', so the Mail had better be careful when they rant about computers and the internet in future...)

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A society gets the criminals it deserves. If a violent criminal is proven guilty, torture and kill the fucker on cable TV. No whining, no rehabilitation, no wondering why they did it, just swift and brutal justice. Then see how the murder rate responds.

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We already have the death penalty in many US states. It doesnt make much of a deterant. Keep in mind that most murders arent pre-planned. They're "crimes of passion". The murderer isnt normally considering the consequences of his crime when he commits it. Of course, Im opposed to the death penalty to begin with so my opinion on such matters is already largely biased.

I as well do not believe that a game, television show, movie, or book can be solely responsible for an act of violence. Anyone who commits a crime based solely on something he saw/read was probably going to do it without needing any extra help from the media in question.

At the same time though. One has to wonder why we like violent media to begin with.

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A society gets the criminals it deserves. If a violent criminal is proven guilty, torture and kill the fucker on cable TV. No whining, no rehabilitation, no wondering why they did it, just swift and brutal justice. Then see how the murder rate responds.

That's the exact kind of thinking that perpetuates this kind of behavior.

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This is a stupid thread, you don't even have anyone to argue against, you just set up a rallying flag in a field and put together an army, but you have nowhere to send it and nothing to do with it. Your heart is in the right place but your post isn’t.

and Richo Rosai, the murder rate has been lowering for years, we will have to wait for the next crime wave before we can start publically decapitating drug trafficers in madison square gaurden, sucks doesn't it.

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That's the exact kind of thinking that perpetuates this kind of behavior.

And you know this how? Is there any modern society that does something like it? Seriously, I'm ignorant. I just don't like the idea of putting the interests of the poor criminal above those of the victim. Or the idea of paying taxes so scum can lead a relatively comfortable life. There are too many people - if more people who want to threaten the saftey of the innocent get taken out of everyone's way I know I won't lose any sleep.

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It's violent thinking. You're advocating the death of someone. I don't care if they killed someone themselves or not. It's that whole eye for an eye bullshit. Thats how wars get started. Thats how the whole fucking debacle in the Middle-East got started. This stuff never dies out, it just escalates and gets worse every time someone exacts revenge.

Seriously, what you're saying is both a symptom and a propogator of violence.

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Richo Rosai said:
And you know this how? Is there any modern society that does something like it? Seriously, I'm ignorant. I just don't like the idea of putting the interests of the poor criminal above those of the victim. Or the idea of paying taxes so scum can lead a relatively comfortable life. There are too many people - if more people who want to threaten the saftey of the innocent get taken out of everyone's way I know I won't lose any sleep.

It’s actually cheaper to lock them up for life then it is to kill them (legal costs and what not), besides, you can put them to work. Make them earn your 5 cents a year that they get from your tax.

I don't oppose the death penalty because I feel sympathy for criminals, I oppose it because a) It doesn’t work as a deterrent, b) about %30 of people on death row are innocent c) it doesn’t bring closer to the victims families (often it makes things worse) and d) who decides what is punishable by death?

The law might need some work, but tougher penalties don’t mean shit to somebody who thinks they are going to get away.

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A society gets the criminals it deserves. If a violent criminal is proven guilty, torture and kill the fucker on cable TV. No whining, no rehabilitation, no wondering why they did it, just swift and brutal justice. Then see how the murder rate responds.

That would only stop the casual criminals - there are some that would rather commit the crime and have it done, regardless of whether they live or not.

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Danarchy said:
It's violent thinking. You're advocating the death of someone. I don't care if they killed someone themselves or not. It's that whole eye for an eye bullshit. Thats how wars get started. Thats how the whole fucking debacle in the Middle-East got started. This stuff never dies out, it just escalates and gets worse every time someone exacts revenge.

Seriously, what you're saying is both a symptom and a propogator of violence.

It's a fact that with harsh and voilent law-enforcing you'll get an equally harsh response from able criminals. They'll just shoot cops down because they know that the consequences of getting caught are shitty.

Plus, law enforcement does not and cannot work like that for long periods without making a mess and affecting the media and social life. There is a dialogue with criminality because its part of society, not something alien. It's our thing, so we have to deal with it responsibly. Which does not mean exactly erradicating it.

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You mighht want to read a bit of A Game of Thrones, Danarchy. Changed how I look at executions. I think it's mainly in the beginning. Good book anyway.

By...?

Anyway, I doubt that. Pretty much all of my ideas and opinions are based off of years of reading articles, novels, and essays, watching various television programmes, and studying people and life in general. Doubtful one book could tip the scales.

Despite how against the death penatly I am, there is one exception in my opinions. Serial killers. Really, they're messed up in the head enough that nothing can change them (short of perhaps electro-shock therapy or a lobotamy), they are a threat to society and the only solution is their, err, removal from it. I'm not saying I'd actualy encourage killing them, but I would make that one exception. As it currently is though, at least 90% of all prisoners put to death in this country do not fit that profile, which I think is rather sad.

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Alright, this is the one thing that makes me the angriest. It's when parents blame their kids bad behavior and what they do on video games and movies instead of taking the fall for their bad parenting. I was lucky enough to have good parents, I started playing violent games when I was 3 (Wolf3D) and I've been playing FPS ever since. Have I killed anyone? No. I haven't even hit a person out of my anger and I've never picked or been in a fight. I am living proof that video games don't influence kids, parents do. My parents taught me that video games aren't real, no matter how real they seemed and that there are real penalties for doing the kindof stuff that's in video games.

So it's the parents fault for their kids misbehaving and shooting people because they were never taught that it was wrong.

Basically the columbine kids had trouble dealing with their problems and because their parents hadn't told them how to deal with it, they did what video games showed them instead.